Dark Hunter 00 - Dark Bites (Novellas) (61 page)

“Explain the current weirdness surrounding you.”

Call the cops, Zeke. Now.
 

That would only be a waste of your time.
 

He gasped at the sound of Gabriel’s voice in his head.

“You have been chosen,” Gabriel said in that same spooky voice he’d been hearing.

“For what? Arkham Asylum?”

“To be an avenger for mankind.”

Zeke tried to open the door, but before he could, it vanished. Literally.

Anger and fear mixed inside him. “Yo, Hotel California, I want my door back.”

“And so it’ll return once we have this settled.”

“Settled, my ass. I’m not Emma Peel and I’d look like shit in a black catsuit. Find her for your avenger. Now let me go.”

Gabriel tsked at him. “You can’t fight your destiny, Ezekiel. Besides, you asked for this. We couldn’t have fulfilled Michael’s choice had you been unwilling.”

Unwilling for what? Zeke swallowed as he turned around slowly to face Gabriel. “How did I choose this?”

“You asked for your life to change. You wanted to be special. To make a difference. Michael heard you, and so he chose you to be his replacement.”

“Michael’s dead.”

Gabriel shook his head. “Not dead. After all these centuries of fighting, he’s retired. You’re the new Seraph who will take on his duties.”

Yeah, the dude was on crack. “
What
duties?”

“To maintain the natural order of the universe. Good versus evil. We allow evil a certain latitude to fulfill its part, but whenever the demons take their duties too far, we are the ones who rein them in.”

“Bullshit!”

Zeke ran for his bedroom. He slammed the door shut and locked it then froze as he caught sight of himself in the mirrored door of his closet.

His short black hair was now snow white and long. His clothes were gone, replaced by a black shirt and pants and a long, full black leather coat. Three spikes stood out on each shoulder and a red chain was wrapped around his left arm.

Holy shit! I’m a refugee from FUNimation…
 

Or
Final Fantasy
.

On his right hip was the hilt of a sword that looked like an ancient cross. As he watched the hilt in the mirror, the center opened to reveal two pale blue eyes and a small mouth.

“You can call me Jack.”

Zeke screamed and ripped the hilt off then threw it to the ground. He turned to run to the window only to find Gabriel there.

“I see you met Jack. Don’t worry. Most men scream like girls when he does that.”

Zeke shook his head. “This is a whacked-out dream. I’m going to wake…” He trailed off as “Jack” mutated from a cross-hilt into a large, metallic man.

How much
Fullmetal Alchemist
have I watched?

Jack extended his hand. “All Seraph have a minion and a guardian. I’m yours.”

Zeke’s head whirled at what was happening.
This is not real.
It couldn’t be.

“Breathe deep before you hyperventilate,” Jack said.

“What are you?”

“I told you. I’m your guardian and your minion. Anything you need that’s metal, from transportation to weaponry, I can be. When you need a hand fighting, I look like this.” He indicated his armored human form then pounded his hand against his metallic breast. “The best armor in the world. Nothing, except a handful of demonic weapons, can mar me.”

Gabriel clapped Zeke on the back. “Welcome to the fold, Ezekiel.”

Suddenly something warm swept through Zeke. It felt as if his very blood was on fire. His breathing ragged, he turned back toward the closet. His eyes were a vibrant red and his face was every bit as perfect and ethereal as Gabriel’s.

Zeke lifted his armored arm to make sure it was him.

Shit. It was.

Still in shock, he frowned at Gabriel. “What about my day job?”

A bit sheepish, Gabriel glanced away. “There’s no payment for being a Seraph. Sorry. But you will have a whole new set of skills. Just wait.”

That sounded ominous. “The only skill I want is the ability to wish myself a billionaire.”

Jack laughed. “Won’t happen. They like poverty.”

“They” who?

Gabriel scratched nervously at his neck. “And there’s one more thing you should know.”

Of course there was. “And that is?”

“Your granduncle Michael notwithstanding, the average life expectancy for a Seraph is… two years.”

Zeke laughed nervously. “Oh yeah… hell to the no. I definitely decline. You can take this crap and stick it.”

Gabriel reached behind his ear and pulled out the coin Zeke had taken from his uncle’s house. “The minute you willingly accepted the medallion, you sealed your fate. You have been chosen, my brother. The only way out now is death.”

Zeke gaped at him. “You’re shitting me.”

Jack clapped him on the back. “But on the upside, your Seraph form will never age. And the only way to die is by a demon blade. As long as you survive fighting them, you’re immortal to the things that would kill a normal human being. Think of the money you’ll save on medical bills.”

That was so
not
an upside.

Gabriel gave him a gimlet stare. “And there’s one more thing.”

“Neutering?” That would be Zeke’s luck.

Gabriel laughed. “No.” He snapped his fingers. An instant later a black mist appeared by his side. It swirled into the small form of a raven. No sooner had the bird appeared than it exploded into the form of a tall, gorgeous woman with long black hair and coal-black eyes. Dressed all in black, she was striking and tough.

Now we’re talking.
 

Gabriel inclined his head to her. “Ravenna is also your helpmate.”

“Oh yeah, baby.” He reached for her, only to have her grab his wrist and flip him onto the ground, where he landed with a painful
oof
.

She wrenched his arm and put one perfectly spiked heel on the center of his chest. “Keep your hands to yourself or lose them.” She pressed the heel in, making him grimace. “And don’t call me baby.” Then she released him and moved away.

Gabriel’s eyes danced with humor. “Ravenna is your contact with the other side. She’s also your eyes and ears, both to me and to the demon posse. You guys get acquainted. I have duties to attend.” He vanished.

“But – ”

“There are no buts, boy,” Jack said, laughing. “You, my friend, have been chosen.”

Ravenna nodded her agreement. “Always be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.”

Yeah, and in this one wish, Zeke had definitely been screwed.

LOVE BYTES

1

“Could you please tell me what’s wrong with me? I swear if anyone else looks at me and snickers, I might go postal.”

Samantha Parker looked up from her computer monitor to see Adrian Cole standing in her cube. Or rather towering over it. At six foot five, the man reminded her of a giraffe when he moved around the office.

Not that she minded. Personally, she adored his height, just as she adored those gorgeous eyes of his. Deep and a dark chocolate-brown, they made her melt every time he looked at her.

And the sleek, loose-limbed way he walked…

Oooh, just thinking about it was enough to make her burn.

She’d never been particularly fond of blond men, but those dark eyes with his thick mane of tawny curls and lush golden skin just made her ache for a taste. A nervous jitter went over her like it always did when he stood this close to her, and she could smell the clean, spicy scent of him. The man was simply mouth-wateringly scrumptious, and incredibly brilliant.

“Well?” he prompted.

Sam bit her lip as she raked her gaze over his long, lean frame. “Other than the fact you look like your seeing-eye dog dressed you this morning, nothing,” she teased. “What did you do to make Heather mad this time?”

He cursed under his breath. It was common knowledge that Adrian had a rare type of color blindness that rendered him completely incapable of seeing any color whatsoever. As a result, he paid his baby sister to do his laundry, and every time Heather got upset at big brother, she took it out on his wardrobe.

“What did she do to me now?” he asked warily.

“Well, you’ll be happy to know your red plaid shirt is still red, but the splotchy pink Henley really has to go.”

Adrian held his leg out and pulled his jeans up to show her his socks. “What about them?”

“Unlike your shirt, they actually match your Henley.”

Growling low in his throat, he buttoned his plaid shirt all the way to his neck. “One day, I’m going to kill her.”

Sam laughed at the threat he uttered at least twice a week. She’d met Heather a couple of times during lunch, and though Sam liked her, Heather was a bit self-absorbed.

“So, what did you do?” she asked.

“I refused to let her borrow my Vette. The last time she took it out, she hit a pole and cost me three thousand dollars in damage.”

“Yikes.” Sam cringed for him. Adrian loved his vintage 1969 Stingray. “Was she hurt?”

“Thankfully, no, but my car is still sulking over it.”

Sam laughed again, but then, she always did that around him. Adrian had a dry, sharp wit that never missed a beat. “Well, I’m glad you stopped by. My Perforce is acting up again. I can’t get it to integrate my changes.” Which meant that the stupid server had her locked out and every time she tried to update a page on their Web site, it refused to let her.

She hated Perforce, and it hated her. But they were required to use it so that upper management could keep track of who made what changes to the Web site, and out of the entire network services department, Adrian was the only one who really understood the program.

“What’s it doing?” he asked as he came to stand beside her.

Sam couldn’t breathe as he leaned down to read her screen. His face was so close to hers that all she had to do was move a mere two inches and she would be able to place her lips against that strong, sculpted jaw.

“Scroll down.”

She heard Adrian’s words, but they didn’t register. She was too busy watching the way his incredibly broad shoulders hunched as he leaned with one hand against her desk.

He glanced down at her.

Sam blinked and looked back at the screen. “I’m scrolling,” she said as she reached for her mouse.

“There’s your problem,” he said as he read the gobbledy-gook. “You haven’t enabled your baseline merges.”

“And in English that would mean?”

Adrian laughed that rich, deep laugh that made her burn even more. He covered her hand with his on the mouse and showed her how to choose the right options.

He surrounded her with his masculine warmth. Sam swallowed at the disturbing sensation of his hand on hers as fire coursed through her. He had beautiful, strong hands. His long, lean fingers were tapered and perfect. Worse, every time she looked at them, she couldn’t help wondering what they would feel like on her body, touching her, caressing her.

Seducing her.

His cell phone rang. Adrian straightened and pulled the phone from its cradle on his belt. He checked the caller ID, then flipped it open like Captain Kirk. “Yeah, Scott, what’s wrong?”

“Radius is down,” Scott, their network security specialist, said over the speaker phone, “and I can’t get it up and running.”

“Did you reboot?”

“Duh.”

Adrian indicated her chair with his head.

Sam got up and watched as he set the phone aside, took a seat in her chair, and opened a DOS window on her computer. He tapped swiftly on her keyboard, then picked his phone back up. “It’s not cycling.”

“I know, and I can’t fix it.”

“All right,” Adrian said with saintly patience. “I’ll be up there in a few minutes.”

He clicked off his phone, but before he could move his phone rang at the same time his pager went off and the overhead paging system called his name. Adrian answered his cell phone again and checked his pager.

“Did you get the hacker alert?” Scott asked.

“Hang on,” Adrian said, then he reached for her desk phone to answer his page.

“Hi, Randy,” he said as he tucked the phone between his shoulder and cheek and started typing on her keyboard. “I’m in the process of switching the main databases over to my SQL. We should be ready to fly by five.” He paused as he listened and switched her computer from the Windows over to Linux.

Sam watched in awe as he flawlessly entered line after line of stuff she couldn’t even begin to follow or understand.

“No,” Adrian said to Randy, “our customers won’t notice at all, except the searches will take less time.” He entered more lines as he listened to their senior director, Randy Jacobs, on the phone.

Another page went off for him.

Adrian nodded as he listened to Randy. “Yeah, I’ll get to it. Would you mind holding for just a second?”

He picked up his cell phone. “Scott, it’s not a hacker. It’s an invalid SID. Someone is using a bookmark with an old Session ID attached to it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I’m looking at it right now.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Adrian gave her a sheepish smile as he clicked off his cell phone and picked up the other line on her desk phone.

Biting her lips to keep from smiling at the chaos, Sam felt for him. At twenty-six, Adrian was known to everyone in the company as the boy genius. He had taken a billion-dollar corporation from the 1980s mainframe mentality into the twenty-first century Web-based e-commerce. He had single-handedly built the entire programming side of their million-dollar business retail site, and put together a Web design team that was second to none.

Unfortunately, though, everyone in the company turned to him every time something went wrong with the site. Which meant he was always on call and always rushing from one department to the next, putting out fires and trying his best to explain extremely complicated things to people who had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

Adrian came into the office every morning by five-thirty, and seldom went home before eight at night.

The stress on him had to be excruciating, and yet he was the most easygoing boss she’d ever known. She couldn’t count the number of times a day someone was complaining, if not shouting, about something, or begging him to help them, and yet he never let the strain of it show.